I just found out this morning that I've officially been short-listed for the Institute of Physics' Very Early Career Prize for women in physics. I'm not sure when I found out if I've won (or not!), but I've been invited to their big event on October 17th
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The Schlumberger Foundation is accepting applications for the 2013–2014 Faculty for the Future Fellowships from September 10th to November 16th 2012 for new applications from September 10th to November 9th for renewal applications.
The Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future program, launched in 2004, awards fellowships to women from developing and emerging economies to pursue PhD or post-doctoral studies in the physical sciences*, engineering and technology at leading universities abroad. All information on eligibility criteria and the application process can be consulted: http://www.facultyforthefuture.net/content/grant-application-process If you believe you are eligible, please apply on-line as of September 10th, 2012 at www.fftf.slb.com This year marks Angelo B. Mingarelli's 60th year on the planet, as well as his 33rd year in academia. How many of these years were spent in alien captivity, we may never know...
In honour of this occasion, his students have decided to throw him a big birthday party on Oct 6th 2012. There is a small registration fee, to be paid at the door, to cover the cost of food and drinks. Any remaining proceeds will be donated to the Navan Animal Rescue Centre. For more information visit www.mingarellianniversary.weebly.com. Happy birthday papa'! I am currently in Ottawa teaching a pre-calculus mini course called "math matters". It's not compulsory, but even so, I have 69 very keen engineering students in my section this year. They seem to particularly enjoy my segues into black holes and all things relativistic! I think they're one of the most interested and brightest classes I've taught so far, but then again I've only taught it 3 times.
I think this mini course is a great idea to get everyone on the same page before starting calculus at University. You can get a synopsis of the course here. What a week! The article my group and I have been working on for so long has finally been published in Physical Review Letters. Not only has the article been published in this noteworthy journal, but it has been highlighted in their free magazine, "Physics", by science populariser David Voss. Voss' freelance writer work appears Science, Nature, Wired, Technology Review, Physics World, and New Scientist !
Our group's article, "Observing the dynamics of super-massive black hole binaries with Pulsar Timing Arrays" has been formally accepted by Physical Review Letters (PRL). This is after we received minor corrections from the referees x2. The article has been posted on the arxiv and will appear tomorrow (tonight at midnight). Finally!!
Here is the abstract: Pulsar Timing Arrays are a prime tool to study unexplored astrophysical regimes with gravitational waves. Here we show that the detection of gravitational radiation from individually resolvable super-massive black hole binary systems can yield direct information about the masses and spins of the black holes, provided that the gravitational-wave induced timing fluctuations both at the pulsar and at the Earth are detected. This in turn provides a map of the non-linear dynamics of the gravitational field and a new avenue to tackle open problems in astrophysics connected to the formation and evolution of super-massive black holes. We discuss the potential, the challenges and the limitations of these observations. Hi all! A former University of Birmingham post doc and a good friend of mine, Dr. Eleanor Chalkley, is looking for a job in the Netherlands. If anyone has any leads or jobs, why not check out her website, www.eleanorchalkley.com, and get in touch?
One of the big messages I got from the IPTA meeting in Australia was that the stochastic GW background that we're looking for probably isn't isotropic. So right now, I'm looking in to anisotropies as my next big project for my PhD, starting by reading Thrane et al 2009.
I'm back from Australia! I went over for the IPTA's summer school and science week. At the science week in Kiama I gave a talk on the most recent article I've been working on with the Birmingham GW group, "Measuring the evolution of a super-massive black hole binary using Pulsar Timing Arrays", which was very well received. I got some useful comments from Yuri Levin and spoke to many other interested participants.
Since it was the winter, the weather was pretty cold but sunny! No tan for this physicist.... |
AuthorChiara Mingarelli, science lover. Archives
January 2014
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